On Demand Conversion of Standard Logical Volumes to Thin-Provisioned Logical Volumes

1. A method for concurrently converting a standard volume to a thin-provisioned volume without physically moving or migrating data in the standard volume, the method comprising: creating, on storage devices hosting a standard volume, metadata for a thin-provisioned volume; updating the metadata for the thin-provisioned volume to point to extents residing in the standard volume; suspending I/O to metadata for the standard volume; migrating control of the extents from a standard-volume control algorithm to a thin-provisioned-volume control algorithm; resuming the I/O to the metadata for the thin-provisioned volume; scanning the thin-provisioned volume for any extents that contain all zeroes (hereinafter “zeroed extents”); and removing the zeroed extents from the thin-provisioned volume.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein updating the metadata for the thin-provisioned volume comprises updating the metadata to point to all extents residing in the standard volume.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein removing the zeroed extents comprises placing the zeroed extents in a free extent pool.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein removing the zeroed extents comprises one of automatically removing the zeroed extents and removing the zeroed extents in response to user input.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein updating the metadata for the thin-provisioned volume comprises updating the metadata to point to all non-zeroed extents residing in the standard volume.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising ensuring that sufficient space is available to accommodate the metadata for the thin-provisioned volume prior to creating the metadata for the thin-provisioned volume.